


rough winds do shake

by Lycoris_03



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragons, Dragonstone, F/M, King Stannis Baratheon, Self-Insert, Siege of Storm's End, Storm's End (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24235765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycoris_03/pseuds/Lycoris_03
Summary: A self-indulgent fic, exploring how the universe would change if:a) somebody actually cared about Stannisb) Stannis was a failed three-eyed-crow (stealing from Perfidius Albion here)c) Stannis and Renly actually had a decent relationship
Relationships: Stannis Baratheon/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 102





	1. rock

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent self-insert. This stuff is completely unedited. I just want to post it.

“… she’s waking up, my lord.”

There is darkness all around her, and dimly, she is aware that she is shaking, or being shook. She tries to form words, but her mouth seems to move sluggishly. Her head pounds. There is the sound of scratching, matches being lit, and then she can see light through her eyelids. She blinks.

“… what is your name, child?” a man dressed in gold and crimson asks. He is a lord, she knows, and she opens her mouth to answer.

“Za…” She knows her name.

She does not.

“Alaena, my lord.”

“And whose daughter, are you?”

She tries to remember, she really does, but the headache returns, and she moans.

“More milk of the poppy,” the man snaps, and then the bitter concoction is dribbling past her lips. She swallows. She must.

The pain lessens enough for her to think. She is…

She does not know which. She is Alaena, because she has said so, a child spirited away at birth. She knows this. What is the rest? Visions, surely. She looks at the man again, garbed in red and gold, lions rampant, and knows it is a Lannister. The one with the sword? Or the one with the crossbow bolt through the belly? She struggles to sit up.

“Whose daughter are you?” the Lannister lord asks again, more impatient. The old man at his side rushes to steady her when she sways, still seated on the bed.

“V- Velaryon, my lord.”

“Lord Monford Velaryon has no daughters, I am told. He is unmarried.”

Monford… Monford. There might be other Velaryons named Monford, but she knows there is a Monford in her visions. He dies in green flames, with only a boy child to succeed him. Monterys? The details begin to escape her, but she shakes her head.

“Forgive me for asking, my lord, but which Lannister lord are you?”

“You have yet to answer my question, child. And it is Lord Tywin Lannister.”

“What year is it?” she asks, suddenly, “I have seen…”

Men like Lord Tywin place very little faith in gods, but even then, he is wary.

“Leave us.” His voice is commanding. Harsh.

When the door is shut, and there is no shadow under the door, she finally looks into Lord Lannister’s eyes. They are a bright green, she sees.

“It is 275 AC,” he tells her.

With that, everything falls into place.

“I am Lady Alaena Velaryon, trueborn daughter of Monford Velaryon, born in 266 AC,” she says, louder and clearer. “My father sent me away soon after my birth to avoid marrying me to Prince Rhaegar. I was raised in Pentos by a Valyrian maid and a septa. A moon ago I escaped and tried to return to Westeros.” She closes her eyes, pauses for a moment. At his prompting, she continues.

“The ship I smuggled myself in sailed past Driftmark, past Dorne, before I decided I was to get off as soon as I could. I fell ill in the hold, after which the first mate found me. And now I am here. Have you pen and paper?”

Without a word, Lord Tywin fetches her parchment and ink.

“I had visions, when I was ill,” she says, scratching down _277_ on the parchment. “Visions of the future, I think. Mayhap it was my addled mind, but the dates and names and faces were clear as day. It fades with each passing moment, you see, so I must write it down. But I cannot show it to you, or the future might be changed.”

_277 AC – Defiance of Duskendale_

_280 AC – Rhaegar Targ. marries Elia Martell, birth of Rhaenys Targ._

_281 AC – Jaime Lann. Kingsguard. Tourney of Harrenhal – Rhaegar Targ. crowns Lyanna Stark._

_282 AC – birth of Aegon Targ., Robert’s Rebellion_

_283 AC – Robert wins. Robert marries Cersei Lann. Jaime stays on the Kingsguard even though he stabs Aerys Targ. in the back. Elia Martell and children are killed by Gregor Cleg. And Armory Lorch._

_284 AC – Siege of Dragonstone. Viserys and Daenerys Targ. escape._

_289 AC – Greyjoy rebellion._

_297 AC – Daenerys and Viserys in Pentos_

_298 AC – Jon Arryn is poisoned and dies_

_299 AC – Hand of the King Eddard Stark is beheaded for treason. Joffrey Lann. becomes king. War of the Five Kings. Jaime captured by Robb Stark at the Whispering Wood. Battle of the Blackwater. Red Wedding. Viserys Targ. dies. Daenerys Targ. hatches three dragons._

_300 AC - Joffrey poisoned at his own wedding. Sansa Stark escapes._

Her mind begins to waver, but she presses on.

  * _Stannis Baratheon goes North_
  * _Jon Snow is murdered (R+L = J?)_
  * _Greyjoys take Winterfell. Boltons take Winterfell. Stannis wins Torrhen’s square_
  * _Margaery marries Tommen_
  * _Myrcella goes to Dorne_
  * _Tyrion escapes to Essos, becomes Daenerys’ Hand_



“That’s all I can remember,” she says, a little resigned. What she has written consolidates itself in her mind. These things she knows, and now she will not forget. She feeds the parchment to a candle and sees Lord Tywin’s aborted movement towards it.

“Your grandson becomes a king,” she tells him. And no more than that, which makes the promise a hollow one.

“I will write to Lord Velaryon,” Lord Tywin says at last. She opens her mouth to object, then closes it again.

“The fewer who know, the better.”

And it is so. Her father receives the letter but urges her to remain with Lord Tywin. She wishes he were more eager to see his long-lost daughter. He is not. She hears nothing of her mother, until Lord Tywin informs her that her mother is dead. Lord Monford was to marry again, hoping for a son. Just as well. She would be Lord Tywin’s ward.

It takes a few days before she is well enough to leave the bed, and even then, she is weak enough that she must lean on the wall every so often. Maester Creylen cares for her the best he can, but at the command of Lord Tywin. It does not escape her notice that the maester wants glory for the Lannisters. Her presence, however well hidden, would pose a threat to Cersei and her bid to be Rhaegar’s queen.

She takes her lessons separately from the Lannister children, then. Maester Creylen is disappointed that the septa had not taught her much of value, but he mutters that women know little, so he did not expect much from her. Alaena takes to her books as readily as she does to her few lessons with Lord Tywin. The other lessons, the ones with a maid (the septa was for Lady Cersei), were done with some reluctance.

As a trueborn daughter of a noble, if now diminished, house, Alaena is taught everything Lady Cersei learns. While Lady Cersei is given a more rounded education on the entirely of the realm, as would benefit a would-be queen, Alaena learns more of the specifics of the Westerlands as well as the Crownlands, to which House Velaryon owed its fealty. The emphasis on the West might have been Lord Tywin’s way of reminding her whose ward she was, but she thought it might also have been grooming her to be a wife for Jaime.

She has not met the twins yet, but she has seen the youngest, Lord Tyrion. Lord Tywin never visits the corridors he lives in, so she can sneak out to meet the dwarf child. She visits him to tell him what she has learned about dragons, usually, since he perks up the most at those stories. Alaena manages to keep her visits a secret until a maid catches her slipping out of Tyrion’s room and reports it to Lord Tywin.

“What were you doing in his room.”

There is no inflection in the sentence, nothing to suggest anger, or that it was a question. Alaena notices that Lord Tywin does not call Tyrion “my son” or acknowledge their relation in any way. Alaena finds it sad.

“I was telling him about dragons. He likes those stories.”

“He cannot understand you.”

“He can!” At Lord Tywin’s piercing gaze, she looks away. “He can,” she says, quieter. “If he doesn’t like the story I’m telling him, he asks for the story of Daeron the Young Dragon. He likes it when I read _The Conquest of Dorne_ to him. My lord.”

The courtesy is perfunctory.

“King Daeron was an ancestor of yours,” Lord Tywin says. He is seated behind his desk, but still intimidating. _Tywin Lannister, Terror of Kings_ , she thinks.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Can he read?”

“Better than a child barely two namedays old should,” she says to him, a little proudly. “He can read words like “dragon” and “lion” and knows what kings and queens are.”

Lord Tywin nods and dismisses her. A sennight later, she is surprised when the maid brings Tyrion to Maester Creylen after her lessons. She lingers at the door, and she sees the maester bring the fidgeting boy _The Conquest of Dorne_. She can see Tyrion light up. With a smile, Alaena leaves.

The red she must wear as a Lannister ward fits poorly with her complexion. The reds dull her eyes and makes a mockery of her skin. She likes the gold, though.

Alaena has very few opportunities to see herself in a looking glass. At nine namedays, nearly ten, she is a child, and looks the part. Her hair is dark brown, nearly black, and the maester had commented that Lord Velaryon’s wife must have been very dark of hair for her to be born without the signature Valyrian silver hair. Her eyes are pale, mayhap violet in the right light. Aside from her hair, she looks Valyrian.

She does not meet the twins until she has been at Casterly Rock for nearly a year. It is just before the Tourney at Lannisport, to celebrate Prince Viserys’ nameday. She is leaving the library to report to Lord Tywin when she sees a golden-haired boy, about her age, snap at her.

“You, girl. My sister needs another handmaiden to help her with her dress.” At that, he begins marching her to the room from which the sister in question is yelling.

“You’re doing my hair all wrong!” a girl cries from within. “Father will dismiss you tomorrow.” There is a slap and a cry, and a serving wench runs from the room clutching her cheek.

Alaena sees the girl, beautiful, garbed in red and gold, and knows her to be Lady Cersei.

“My lady,” she murmurs, dipping her head. It is good that the twins do not notice her, thinking her beneath them. She is going to be late to meet Lord Tywin, but he would forgive her for this. Alaena begins brushing out Lady Cersei’s golden locks. She leaves enough of Cersei’s hair loose to tumble down in thick, luscious waves, and per the lady’s request, ties the braids up to crown her head. It is presumptuous.

It is brave.

With that, she begs their leave, dashing down the hall to find Lord Tywin. She is breathing hard when she arrives at his door, barely dipping into the requisite curtsey and the _my lord_ s before she is hissing at him.

“I saw Lady Cersei and Lord Jaime.”

There is nothing on Lord Twyin’s face when he beckons for her to continue.

“Lord Jaime thought I was a servant,” she tells him, a little calmer, “and they made me do Lady Cersei’s hair.”

There is a long silence before Lord Tywin makes his judgement.

“Perhaps it is best if you pose as her handmaid. The septa cannot teach you unless you are with her.”

“But not to the tourney. The king might be there.”

Lord Tywin agrees.

With most of the household in Lannisport, she has the run of Casterly Rock. She can read to Tyrion as often as she likes, and Maester Creylen teaches her sums, which she takes to readily. The maester has warmed up to her presence, it seems, as a pupil so eager to learn. She has the sigils and words of most noble Westerosi families memorized, by now, and can recite her ancestry, along with the Targaryen’s, back to the Age of Heroes. Her sums are easy to learn, she finds.

When the Lannisters return, Lord Tywin seething in anger and Cersei was weeping over a broken promise. As she had expected, Aerys had denied Cersei as a bride for Rhaegar.

She learns to multiply.

Sometime after, when Lord Tywin’s anger had cooled enough for him to summon her to his solar.

“You will serve as my cupbearer instead,” he informs her. Alaena knows that part of it is his fear that having her pose as a noble handmaiden might draw undue notice towards her. With Cersei rejected, she would still be a viable bride.

And so, she becomes Tywin Lannister’s cupbearer.

She misses most lessons with the septa, except for the one during which the skittish woman informed her about moon’s blood and what she should do during her first bleeding.

It is worth it, though. She learns more from Lord Tywin during her time as his cupbearer than she does from the septa. She watches him manage the lords who petition, averts her eyes whenever they look in her direction. He is firm with everyone but is never blunt. Every word is carefully crafted for maximum impact.

Six moons after she begins her tenure, he finally asks her what she has learned, after a meeting, and she is only too happy to tell him.

“Lord Serrett is resentful of your demand but he will do as you command. He is waiting for you to be buried so he can take advantage of Lord Jaime’s disinterest. Lord Westerling is here at the behest of his wife. He does not truly care whether he gets that extra cut of gold, only that his wife is satisfied. Lord Crakehall is interested in Lord Jaime, mayhap wishes for the honor of having his lord’s heir squire for him.”

Lord Tywin nods.

“Lord Farman.”

It takes her a moment for her to realize he is asking her.

“Of Fair Isle,” she says, for time. “He did not speak much. This seemed like a routine meeting for him.”

“He noticed you,” Lord Tywin says, softly, sending chills down her spine. “He will write to ask after you. If he noticed your eyes, he would ask why I have a daughter of Valyria in my household.”

He stops, waiting for her to continue.

“You will lie,” she says, hesitant, then corrects herself. “You will tell him part of the truth, but not all of it. If my father claims me, later, you will still have your bannerman’s trust, since you presumably told him as much of the truth as you knew at the time.”

Lord Tywin nods.

“As my ward, it is my duty to find a match for you. Lord Farman has a son.”

She does not know Farman’s son. She inclines her head.

“As you command, my lord.”

“Your father may push for a different match. Perhaps another Narrow Sea house, like Celtigar or Bar Emmon, for their Valyrian blood.”

She nods but does not speak.

“Have you a man in mind?”

“No, my lord. I have not spoken to many men but Maester Creylen, Lord Jaime, Lord Tyrion, and your Lordship.”

Lord Tywin dismisses her.

He analyzes each meeting with her afterwards. She is grateful for his instruction, and she knows that it will make her indebted to him afterward. No matter where she goes, she carries the Lannister blessing or taint with her. She cannot begrudge him for it.

Later, she hears Lady Cersei shout at her father.

“Why are you keeping a serving wench closer than your own daughter?” Cersei screams. “If I had been born a man, you know I would be a better lord than…”

Alaena escapes before one Lannister or the other storms out in a rage and sees her. Now, she actively avoids Cersei. The young lady’s eyes were filled with venom whenever they chanced upon her dark-haired head. Alaena also noticed that Lady Cersei was even crueler to Tyrion than usual, even though Jaime seemed fascinated by his brother.

It would be alright, Alaena told herself.

It was not alright.

A year later, after Lord Jaime had been sent off to squire for Lord Crakehall, as she had predicted, Lord Darklyn of Duskendale captured King Aerys. It was the Defiance of Duskendale, people were saying, and Lord Tywin calls his banners to free the King.

She is left alone at the Rock with Cersei and Tyrion.

Not even a fortnight has passed before Cersei corners her and demands answers. The septa is sleeping, maybe drunk or drugged, and Maester Creylen has gone with the Lord Tywin. The Lady Gemma Frey, Lord Tywin’s sister, is here to watch Cersei, but she is easily evaded.

Alaena’s room is a small one with a narrow cot and a single chest to store her blessedly few gowns. Lord Tywin had allowed her fabric of her choice to make her own gowns, but she found less and less time to sew. The last dress she had made for herself, blue like the colors of House Velaryon, was getting small for her.

The room was small enough that it could be mistaken for a serving girl’s room. One could assume she had a room to herself because she was Lord Tywin’s cupbearer. Only if they looked closely they would see that the bedding was fine and the mattress was feather instead of straw.

Cersei didn’t.

“ _Who are you_ ,” the golden girl hisses, backing Alaena against a wall in her small room. She will not raise a hand against Lord Tywin’s daughter. She will not.

“I do not know, my lady,” Alaena says, feigning shyness. Cersei cannot see her eyes. “Lord Lannister found me in Lannisport and brought me back to serve him. Mayhap he knows more about me than I do.”

She is sure Cersei will bring her up when Lord Tywin returns, thinking to subtly get information from her father. Her father will know there was a confrontation.

Then Lady Cersei’s un-calloused hands are wrenching her face up to meet Cersei’s. The girl’s green eyes stare into her own, and Alaena knows there will be something afoot. To her surprise, Cersei smiles.

“I see,” the girl says, and leaves.

Alaena can feel her heart pounding. She is not afraid of Lady Cersei, she tells herself, only afraid of being found out. She would give a lot to have Cersei’s foolish bravery.

The king is saved by Ser Barristan, and Lord Tywin returns to Casterly Rock. Lord Jaime visits on occasion, always to see his sister, and she watches him spar from a window, sometimes.

Somehow, Lord Tywin catches her watching.

“You think to be betrothed to my son.”

She denies it, not so vehemently that Lord Tywin would take offence, but not so weakly that he would think his assumption true. He still does.

Alaena does not want to marry Lord Jaime. He has little interest for things aside from swordplay and his sister – and she has noticed the glances between them. They are young, yet, but she knows it might grow to be worse. For the debt she owes Lord Tywin, she will not speak of it. Aside from that, she also does not want to marry Jaime because he is too carefree for her. She wants seriousness, like Lord Tywin, but… younger, she supposes.

When had Lord Tywin become her standard for a husband? It is because she has not met many men besides the Lord of Casterly Rock, she decides, and she knows that she prefers him to Lord Jaime. Well, she has met his lords bannermen, but never interacted with them. Should she? She might ask Lord Tywin.

Word comes, later, that the Lady Catelyn Tully of Riverrun is to be betrothed to the Northman Brandon Stark of Winterfell, heir of Lord Rickard Stark. Lord Tywin finds out, soon, and he summons her to speak with him.

“Lord Hoster’s eldest daughter has been betrothed to Lord Rickard’s heir.”

She knows, better, what his silences mean now. The man so loved his silences. She knows he is asking her to analyze it.

“Lord Hoster has joined their alliance then. First, Lord Arryn fostered Lord Baratheon’s eldest son and Lord Stark’s second son. That is three lord paramounts. Now Lord Hoster furthers Lord Rickard’s southron ambitions by tying their families together in marriage. He is not Lord Paramount of the West,” she says, acknowledging Lord Tywin, “but he is a great lord nonetheless.”

Lord Tywin does not speak, and she knows he is asking what she would do in his scenario.

“Lord Hoster has a son and a daughter,” she begins. “The Tyrells, Wardens of the South, have two unmarried daughters.”

“The Tyrells cleave firmly to the Targaryens.”

Her eyes widen at the implication. She has not heard much of the Targaryens but that King Aerys is suffering from madness, and she knows what Lord Tywin will choose before she even says it.

“Lord Hoster has a daughter,” she says, finally.

And says no more.

Not long after, Lord Jaime is sent to Riverrun.

Lord Tywin constant mutters about how Lord Jaime cares not for his duties as the heir to Casterly Rock, ignoring his intended. Oh, there is no formal betrothal between them, but Lord Hoster thinks it is only a matter of time.

King Aerys calls Lord Tywin back to King’s Landing, and the Lannister household moves. Lord Tywin cannot leave her at the Rock alone, so she is brought as his cupbearer. She does not bear cups often, especially when the king is in attendance for fear of being recognized as Valyrian stock, so she eventually joins Lady Cersei’s party.

Her Lannister cousins avoid the foreign girl in the entourage. If Lady Cersei snipes about her dark, dirty hair, or about her pale, pale eyes, the Lannister girls follow her lead. She brushes it off. She knows Lady Cersei’s secrets.

They are not long at the capital before Jaime comes to visit, spitting in anger about his lord father’s attempt to separate him from his twin. She catches the back end of their conversation and feels some measure of pity for the golden, perfect family.

“Tell the foreign whore to go fetch me my slippers.”

She and Cersei are of an age, but the lady only seems to take that as further offence. Why a daughter of Casterly Rock, when the Prince could have a daughter of Valyria? If Alaena were much younger, far from being able to carry children, the lady would be less threatened.

But they are of an age.

“My lady,” she murmurs, fetching the aforementioned slippers. Lady Cersei dismisses her, and she flees the room. A tactical retreat. The halls are empty but for the patrolling guards, and a young lady with a purpose in mind was not accosted. She began making her way up the tower of the hand.

“I tell you, Tywin, I will not stand for an Andal whore marrying my son!”

She stiffened at the sound. No one would dare speak to Lord Tywin in that manner but the king himself. She turned to flee.

The door slams behind her, and she starts running, lifting her skirts.

“Grab that girl!”

The guards that once disregarded her began lunging for her. She manages to avoid a few, but she miscalculates at the fourth.

She struggles.

The nearest guard strikes her across the face. She can taste the blood in her mouth.

She stops struggling and closes her eyes.

The footsteps draw closer, and she flinches when cold fingers touch her face.

“Whose spy are you, whore?” The King’s breath is foul, and his stench overwhelms her nose. She does not move. The guard next to her strikes her other cheek.

“Answer the king!”

“She is my brother’s bastard on a Lyseni whore,” Lord Tywin’s bored voice cuts through the silence. “I have brought her here to serve my daughter by virtue of her relation to my brother. Otherwise, I would have left her in Lannisport.”

“Your daughter. You don’t know when to stop, do you.”

With that, the men walk away, and the guards release her.

“Go see Maester Creylen, child.” Lord Tywin is being unusually kind. She does not do anything but nod and run for the maester. She does not look at him.

The lie is clear. But it cannot be verified, as a lie or as the truth. She prays for the rebellion. She prays that she might leave this stinking, cesspit-viper-pit of a city soon.

Maester Creylen, the one other person who knows her secret, is also uncharacteristically gentle when he dabs ointment on her face. She will not be able to show her face for a few days while it heals.

As she expected, Lady Cersei comes to her on the second day.

“So,” the lady begins, “one of my uncle’s bastard daughters.”

“My lady,” she murmurs.

“Answer me!” the girl screeches, and Alaena winces. “Whore. That was your mother, but it must run in the blood. Whore. You want Casterly Rock by marrying Jaime.”

The accusation comes out of nowhere, and Alaena looks up at Cersei in shock.

“Lord Tywin would never, ever let me near his heir,” she says at last. “The best I can hope for is to serve my lady when you become Queen.”

Maybe that was too much. But Lady Cersei smiles at that.

“Yes, I’ll be Queen, won’t I.”

She spins on her heel in a ruffle of red silk and leaves.

Alaena lets out a breath. She has not verified anything. She has neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. Sometimes, she feels like she is floating in a cloud of ambiguity. She does not know where she will go.

When she is finally fit to be seen in court, she stumbles across a pale Kingsguard, Ser Arthur Dayne, in front of a door. A woman is screaming inside, and with every cry the man blanches.

“Leave, child,” the man manages to say.

She runs.

Into Lord Tywin.

He beckons for her to follow him, leading her to his office.

“The King takes liberties with his wife.” That is all he says on the matter, but there is an undertone of another kind of resentment she cannot quite identify.

“My daughter informs me that you wish to serve her when she becomes Queen.”

“It is the best position a woman of my station can hope for, my lord.”

Lord Tywin understands.

“My daughter thinks she is clever,” the man says through clenched teeth.

“She is your daughter, my lord.” Lord Tywin glares at her.

“She thinks herself clever enough to work her way into the King’s good graces. The King can barely be _managed_.”

“Lady Cersei wishes you would teacher her more about ruling, my lord.” And it is true.

“ _She,_ ” Lord Tywin says, “is fit to marry a lord or a prince and sire sons.”

There is no convincing the man. He sits her in a corner to read.

Not long after, they receive word that Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana Baratheon have lost their lives in returning from Essos, looking for a Valyrian bride for Rhaegar. Cersei smiles in triumph. Lord Tywin is conflicted.

She knows Lord Steffon and Lord Tywin were good friends, once. And yet their failure means that Prince Rhaegar is yet unmarried. She hears that the new Lord of Storms End had gone back to the Eyrie as soon as possible, leaving a serving wench behind impregnated with his second bastard.

They left behind a third son, barely a year old.

Aerys nearly forces her, the next time she runs into him. Only the intervention of Lord Tywin, again, saves her skin and her virtue.

At the next tourney, Lord Jaime enters, the youngest contestant at thirteen, and wins the melee.

Lord Tywin is proud, happy, but the King is dour.

Lord Tywin toasts his son, and Jaime basks in his father’s approval, while the prince strums his harp.

Lady Cersei whispers to her entourage of ladies. Ladies fawning over the late Lady Joanna’s beautiful daughter. The Light of the West.

Lady Cersei is a woman grown and flowered, ready to wed. The girl only grows more radiant with each passing year as her breasts grow in. Lady Cersei is still slim around the hips, but the ladies of the court praise her beauty day in and day out. None of them notice a bastard of Lannisport.

Reports of the Kingswood Brotherhood nag at Lord Tywin, and Alaena does not know what to do. Her grandfather, Lord Lucerys Velaryon, sits as Aerys’ Master of Ships. He does not acknowledge her. Perhaps he does not know she is here, or that she is alive.

She bleeds not long after. She burns the dirtied sheets and dutifully reports it to Lord Tywin, who nods and dismisses her. The flowering of a bastard girl is of little note when the King is threatened by bandits in the woods.

Lord Jaime participates in the campaign against the Brotherhood alongside the knights of the Kingsguard. When he returns to the keep, he is always overflowing with stories, the men he slew. The twins spend more time together than ever.

Then the threat is over, and Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, knights Jaime with Dawn. Lord Tywin feasts his men in Ser Jaime’s honor. She bears his cups.

Out of nowhere, Prince Rhaegar is betrothed to Elia Martell of Dorne, and Lord Tywin’s dreams of having his daughter as Queen shatter. He tries to betroth Cersei to Viserys, but that is also rebuffed. Cersei rages about the Dornish whore day in and day out.

“If he wanted Valyrian blood, why did he get a Rhyonish whore?” the lady cries. More often now, Alaena is the subject of her ire.

Lord Tywin’s anger is also something to behold, but they attend the royal wedding anyway.

Princess Elia falls pregnant not long after.

By all accounts, it was a difficult labor, and the Dornish-looking daughter the princess births sends Aerys into another murderous rage. The King has brought another pyromancer into his council. He burns a Dornish woman with wildfyre.

Soon after, Lord Robert Baratheon is betrothed to Lad Lyanna Stark, tying two great families together once more. Four great families are tied together with betrothals and fostering. Lord Tywin attempts Lady Lysa once more.

Lady Cersei is determined as ever to remain at court. She hears her titter to the ladies about how wonderful it would be to have her brother, the best swordsman in the realm, at the capital to protect her and the king.

She reports it to Lord Tywin.

At the tourney of Harrenhal, Ser Gerold Hightower inducts Ser Jaime to the Kingsguard anyway, with the King tittering madly.

Princess Elia, newly pregnant, smiles thinly.

Rhaegar crowns Lady Lyanna, and the realm holds its breath.

The two vanish after the tourney, and the realm screams. And bleeds.

Lord Tywin returns to the Rock with his household pleading illness. King Aerys appoints Rossart, a pyromancer, as his Hand.

The following events go by so quickly, with Princess Elia’s next birth a lull in the proceedings. Prince Aegon looks every inch a Targaryen, and Aerys’ fear is assuaged somewhat.

When Lords Rickard and Brandon come south the plead for Lady Lyanna, King Aerys has them burnt. In the Eyrie, Lord Robert rises to avenge his betrothed, as does Lord Eddard Stark for his sister, father, and brother. He marries Lady Catelyn in his brother’s place, and the Riverlands are drawn further into the fold. Lord Arryn calls his banners instead of turning his foster sons over to the Mad King, and the war is set in motion.

Lord Tywin needs an alliance. He cannot give his daughter, and his son is far away. He sends his ward to Storms End.


	2. storm

Alaena stops by Driftmark first, where she is reunited with her father. Does the King know she is also Lord Tywin’s ward? No.

Her grandfather is loyal to the Targaryens, as ever, but her father remembers every slight from House Targaryen against House Velaryon and decides otherwise. The Royal Fleet is held by Velaryon. A Velaryon daughter is sent to Storms End with a letter.

Lord Stannis reads the letter before he acknowledges her. He cannot decide if it is a jape or not. Regardless, it is a promise from Velaryon and Lannister. Lord Stannis chooses the only way he can.

Alaena Velaryon is betrothed to Lord Stannis Baratheon and sworn to silence. Robert Baratheon, her new good-brother, is present.

“You understand that Lord Tywin cannot call his banners and risk the element of surprise,” she says to Lord Robert. “This is only a promise.”

One promise from Lord Lannister, and another promise from her. She cares for little Lord Renly the best she can. She remembers her days with Lord Tyrion and reads to the child from history books. Renly does not understand the words as well as Tyrion did, but he listens to her, nonetheless.

Lord Stannis is busy about the keep, commanding his men in preparation for a long siege. It is a bad time to be trapped in a castle, when the harvest is just coming in. She sees little of her betrothed, but when she does, he always has a peculiar look about his face, as if he cannot quite believe she is here. The curious look is even more pronounced when he sees her with Renly.

Alaena cannot believe that he does not care for his brother. He does not care for Robert – that much is true – but he must care some for Renly, who has done nothing but prefer his to-be good-sister to his brother. She brings Renly to Lord Stannis’ solar not long after that first look. The maester Cressen helps him with the accounts while she reads to Renly until he falls asleep.

She is five and ten, and Storms End is put under siege by the Tyrells. Nothing changes in the first few moons. They cannot leave the keep, which Renly asks about, but it is alright. Their food stores last them a while.

By the third moon, she can see Stannis’ stress and resolves to speak to him.

Once Renly has been put to sleep, she visits him in his office where he is slaving away at the numbers. He is seven and ten, responsible for the lives of hundreds of men in the keep. He does not look like he has slept much at all.

“My lord.” For a second, he looks so much like a darker Lord Tywin that she must struggle not to smile.

“My lady,” he replies, stiff and perfunctory. “You should be in bed.”

“Renly is,” she says with a small smile, “and has been for quite a few hours.” She pauses, setting a hand on the back of his chair.

“I can help you with some sums if it gets you to bed sooner.” Too late, she realizes what she has insinuated. The flush creeping up Stannis’ neck tells her he interpreted it wrongly too.

“You know I don’t mean it like that,” she says with a blush and a sigh. “When was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”

He mumbles something about numbers and food stores, and she starts reading the accounts over his shoulder.

“That little?” she asks, surprised. They had eaten well enough in the last few months, with only the lack of variety being a concern.

“The Redwyne blockade has proven to be rather effective,” he grits out.

She sighs again, pulling the accounts from under his clenched fist. There is little, so little. They cannot last more than another two moons on what is left. Lord Robert’s forces could not hope to win in so little time.

“How many horses do we have stabled here?”

“Twenty-two. And a pony that belongs to my brother.” She nods.

“These numbers only take into account the food in our stores, not the living animals being kept in the keep, no?” He nods slowly.

“While there is still a chance, we should get as many chickens and pigs as possible. The chickens will give eggs, later, and the pigs can eat waste and still give us meat. We should consider when we butcher the horses. Are there any edible animals in the keep?”

“Cats and dogs,” Stannis says, “some rats, and seagulls fly over the keep sometimes.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to catch seagulls. I suppose they’re the only ones who can leave the keep and eat.”

These numbers look more promising. Of course, the risk of the siege lasting longer than half a year was a sure thing. She knew it would last a year.

“Is it possible to grow food inside the keep?”

They make a note of it. Storms End has not had a lady since Lady Cassana left, and now it is up to her to manage it. It is the hour of the wolf when they finish, and she arranges the pages while he gathers up his cloak.

“I will walk you back to your rooms, my lady.” He offers her his arm and they walk in silence away.

He lets go of her arm at her door, and she smiles at him.

“Good night, my lord.”

He nods, unsure of what to do. She takes his hand and squeezes, and he nods at her.

“Good night, my lady.”

Though the hour is late, she cannot sleep. Thoughts of _if_ and _when_ plague her mind. Oh, she knows the general timeline, but the details… she cannot sleep peacefully. For a moment, she wishes she were married already to Stannis so that his presence might give her some comfort. He would not do anything untoward.

His hand had been warm and his arm firm. Enough like Lord Tywin, her foster father, that she could like him. If only.

Her sleep is fitful, and she wakes at the crack of dawn, tired. She cannot go back to sleep, however, when Renly comes barreling into her room being chased by his nanny. She climbs out of bed, only to be tackled by the boy.

“Alaena, will you play monsters and maidens with me today? I’m going to be the Prince of Dragonflies and you can be Jenny of Oldstones.”

“ _Lady_ Alaena is my betrothed, not yours, Renly,” comes Stannis’ voice from the doorway. She is still in her shift, but he does not seem to notice. “And Robert would be wroth if he were to hear that you were playing at dragons while he fights them.”

Renly’s face fell for a moment.

“Do you know many knights, Lord Stannis? I hear Ser Arthur Dayne is quite able with a sword, and Ser Bryden Tully, the Blackfish, fought rather well in the War of the Ninepenny Kings.”

“Ser Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was one of the few knights who were able to slay a dragon.” Renly’s eyes are as wide as saucers, and he bounds after his brother, pestering him with questions.

“… he saved Princess Daeryssa from giants…”

And then she is alone.

The morning is cool, so she dresses in wools, black and blue. She would wear more silver like the seahorse of their sigil, but her hair…

She sighs, again. She is thankful, at least, that she had riding boots made for her before the siege. They are warmer than slippers, at least.

She grabs a cloak, darker red rather than Lannister crimson, and leaves her room. She does not have maids dress her. The few that remained in the castle are needed in the kitchens. As she expects, she finds the two Baratheons in Stannis’ office.

Renly jumps up when she enters.

“Lady Alaena, will you be Lady Daeryssa? I’ll be Ser Serwyn, and Stannis can be the giant! He’s so tall anyway.”

“Of course, Renly,” she smiles at him, “but only if you promise to listen to Maester Cressen while Lord Stannis and I are speaking to the men.”

The boy promises readily enough, and she smiles at Stannis, him still a little bewildered.

“Let’s go to the kitchens first to see if there’s food for us.”

With Renly dangling between them, they march down the stairs to the kitchens. Stannis has a sheaf of parchment under his other arm where she has written a plan for rationing. He’ll speak to the head cook while she and Renly amuse the kitchen maids, and later, she will soothe the cook’s ruffled feathers.

While they wait, she asks Renly to help her count how many people work in the kitchens, which she verifies with the cook later. She will take a census. She will know how many live.

After, Stannis goes to speak with the serfs taking shelter within the castle. They know the places where food can be grown, and they also suggest growing mushrooms in the dark and damp places in the castle. They are to open a tower and bring dirt up to grow more food. Stannis also has a few see how many pigs and chickens they can breed.

Renly is content to tag along with them, though they have not played yet.

After a noon meal, smaller per their request of the cook, Stannis gathers everyone in the courtyard. There is a lull while the people wait to see what their lord might say. 

“People of Storms End,” he says to the assembled, and she squeezes his hand. He must speak louder still. He does not smile, but everyone is grim.

“People of Storms End,” he says, louder. “the Tyrells have had us under siege for more than two moons. They will pay for what they have done to our lands and our people.” An angry murmur rises from the crowd, and she squeezes Stannis’ hand again. Beside her, Renly is counting the people again.

“The Tyrells and their men will pay, but first we must hold the castle, as my lord brother asks of us. Ever man who can hold a sword or a pike will be trained at arms. Everyone must have a role in defending the castle. Mace Tyrell thinks he can starve us, but we are Stormlanders, and we are stronger than that Fat Flower. We will not surrender. We will not yield.”

She knows that people are proudest of who they are. Should a leader give them a cause to believe in, a common enemy, they will follow him.

The people are dismissed to their duties, and she gathers the ladies about. They will be integral to holding the men together. And their breeches. Every woman knows how to sew, how to mend, and the few that are willing to are sent to help the tanner and leatherworker mend the leathers some men wear. She has a few women help the serfs with raising chickens and the like. And once that is done, she smiles and kisses their cheeks and thanks them for all their sacrifices.

The training yard is near to bursting with shields and swords. A few men are going at each other with blunted swords while Maester Cressen looks on with growing worry while some others line up for a chance to cross swords with the young lord. Renly is waving a small war hammer around, a nameday gift from Lord Robert, and the man holding the shield smiles at his antics.

She watches Stannis from behind the fence. Baratheons had always been tall, and he is no exception. He is not overly muscled like Robert was, but he is still strong, she sees. He does not love war or fighting as so many obviously do, but he studies it as he should. The untried men fall easily to him, but he struggles with the more experience knights. They are not as tall as he, but they have experience. But he had been knighted not long ago, for valor or for strength at arms. She does not know, and he does not care to tell her.

Ser Gawen, the Master-at-Arms, finally disarms him. Stannis makes his way over to where they are at the fence, tucking his helm under his arm, and she offers him a handkerchief with a bemused smile. He is dripping sweat, his dark hair matted against his head. He is breathing hard.

“You’ll teach me to fight like you do, won’t you, Stannis?”

“I am not the Warrior incarnate like Robert is.” But the words lack the usual bite, and she laughs.

“I think Renly forgets that you’re a knight sometimes, doesn’t he? _Ser_ Stannis.”

If he could blush more, he would have, she thinks.

“But if Stannis is a knight, then I have to be the giant,” Renly says with a frown.

“Well the stories never say if the giant is a knight or not,” she tells the boy, who lights up again.

Stannis hands her handkerchief back to her. She takes it and ties it around his arm. A favor. She will embroider a nicer one for him later, when there is time for luxury.

Ser Gawen, who has been sparring with another partner, finally approaches Stannis for another match. This time, Stannis wins, but only because he is younger, and Ser Gawen is tired from sparring.

Renly helps Stannis out of his armor afterwards.

“They like that you are willing to train with them,” she tells him, loosening the straps of his breastplate. It is too heavy for Renly, but the boy tries anyway.

“I am just a substitute for my brother to them,” he mutters, untying her favor and stuffing it into his jacket pocket.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she tells him. “Would your brother be so involved in their lives? Would your brother care about anything other than drinking and feasting and wenching? And on occasion, pummeling a few squires with his war hammer?”

Her betrothed is surprised at that.

“They will not like that they are holding a castle instead of fighting in glorious combat with Robert and his troops,” Stannis tries again.

“I think they will like knowing that aside from the Tyrells, the Targaryens have few supporters. By holding this castle, they’re tying up most of the loyalist forces, enabling Robert to win, wherever he is.” Few ravens fly now.

He cannot argue with her.

“You need a bath,” she tells him. “Mind, you smell fine to me, and no one can compare to Ser Gawen’s stench, but it would be nice to be clean while we can still bother with it.”

It is apparent from his face that he cannot tell if she is making a jape or not. Renly is giggling, though, and his face relaxes ever so slightly, and her smile grows wider.

He is not handsome, her Stannis, but there is a fierce kind of strength to him. His eyebrows are dark and his eyes deep and blue and beautiful. On a whim, she gives him a brief hug. He stiffens.

Neither of them is used to affection. Her least of all. She doesn’t remember ever being hugged by anyone other than Renly. Renly, dear Renly, who is hugging Stannis’ legs and smiling up at him.

“You must release the Lady Daeryssa, Ser Giant!” Renly says, still giggling.

“Ser Giant must hide the Lady Daeryssa in his tower first,” she says to Renly, “then the brave Ser Serwyn must find and rescue the lady from the giant.”

“Alright,” Renly says, eyes brimming with excitement. “Go, Stannis! I’ll find you no matter where you hide!”

Alaena laughs aloud then and follows Stannis out of the armoury. Renly runs as fast as his short legs can carry him, and the smith, Donal Noye, smiles from where he is beating out the kinks in the steel from the day’s activities.

She trips on a flagstone in the courtyard, and Stannis catches her. Behind them, Renly cries out.

“I’m coming for you, Stannis!”

Stannis takes on look at her in her skirts and the little boy running after them and slings her over his shoulder and takes off at a run. She lets out a yelp when he hoists her over his shoulder. It quickly turns into a laugh.

Wherever they go, the people stop to stare. Some smile, others frown, but most join in her laughter. They clear the way for little Renly, hardly a match for Stannis’ long legs.

They make it all the way up to his rooms before he sets her down, flexing his arms.

“Quick, barricade the door,” he says, still breathing hard. “The little monster is going to be the death of me.”

Her laugh is brighter as she leans against the shut door. Stannis isn’t frowning either. He’s almost smiling, and it’s such a good look on him. Almost smiling. Stern, but not angry. If he smiled wider, she would think him possessed, but this is good.

She looks past him to his room. It is organized, but there are a few trinkets, here and there. There is a small sword on the wall. His first, mayhap.

They can hear Renly, still in the courtyard, asking where they have gone. She unclasps her coat, still smiling at Stannis, and makes her way to the small window. He follows her.

“This is wonderfully improper, I must say. The great Ser Giant keeping a maiden in his tower room.”

She turns away from the window to see him duck his head and flush.

“I would never…”

“I know,” she says, secretly relieved. She does not want a man who will do with her as he wills, without regard for propriety. Moving over to his bed, she asks silently if she can sit. With a heavy sigh, he sits next to her while they wait for Renly to find them.

Unconsciously, she moves closer to him. Then, partly because she wants to know how he’ll react, and partly because she wants to, she leans her head on his shoulder. Because he’s so tall, she doesn’t have to tilt her head to rest it against his shoulder. Once again, he stiffens, then relaxes. And there they rest in quiet accord until Renly comes pounding on the door.

“I have found you, Ser Giant! Return the Lady Daeryssa this instant!”

“Never, Ser Knight,” Stannis says, standing, “for she is mine.”

Those words send a pleasant shiver down her spine.

“I am Ser Serwyn of the Mirror Shield,” Renly cries, pushing open the door, “I have killed dragons, and now I shall kill you to save the lady!”

As best as he can, Renly lunges for Stannis, tackling him to the bed.

“You’re dead! Come with me, Lady Daeryssa!”

She pretends to swoon.

“Brave and noble Ser Serwyn! You have saved me!” And then she collapses back onto the bed, giggling. Renly joins in, and even Stannis huffs out a laugh.

The boy even has the nerve to press a wet kiss to her cheek and Stannis’.

Then they hear the horn.

She runs to the window, Stannis on her heels.

“Tyrells riding for the gates!” they hear a man cry, and Stannis is moving.

“All archers to the walls!” he shouts from the window, louder than she’s ever heard him. “All archers on the walls! Shields and swords at the gate!”

Renly is pale and scared now. Stannis is already running for the door, but he pauses in the doorway long enough to tell them to stay put.

“You’ll protect us, won’t you Stannis? You won’t let the Tyrell monsters get us?” Renly has such faith in Stannis.

“Yes,” he says, and goes.

She shuts the door behind him. She takes the small sword off the wall and gives it to Renly.

“Will you protect me, Renly, if they come?”

He nods, fervent. He knows no fear.

The attempt on the walls ends quickly. The charge broke the moment the first arrow struck the first horse. It screams and falls and the mounted around them fall.

They don’t need the sword, not when the first to the room is Stannis, tearing his helm off and dropping his chainmail on the ground.

Later that night, he confides in her.

“This won’t be the first attempt.”

“Do we have a guard schedule on the walls?” They did. He’d set it up quickly after the attempt.

He is called soon after, and he follows her to the walls. There are no lights on the battlements, but the Tyrell camp, now in sight, is well lit. She can see the men moving around. Some are drinking.

“I am not worried about Mace Tyrell,” Stannis says, at her elbow. “I worry that better men like Randyll Tarly and Paxter Redwyne might urge him to storm the walls with greater effort. We cannot hold off twenty thousand men with a garrison of a hundred.”

They are out of earshot of the patrolling guards on the wall.

“Then we must pray that Mace Tyrell prefers to sit and wait and not heed Lord Tarly or Redwyne.”

“The men cannot know.”

“They cannot.”

She cannot see his face in the darkness, but she knows what he feels well enough.

He holds himself stiffly the next morning, partly because of the sparring and partly because of the games and holding off the assault. He has hardly slept.

They spend more time together now. He tells her about Proudwing, about growing up in Storms End, and she tells him about Pentos and Casterly Rock. And Kings Landing.

“If Robert wins this war…”

“If Robert wins this war, he will be crowned king by the men who follow him. And Lady Lyanna, even if she is recovered, will not marry the king. Especially not if Prince Rhaegar has done to her what we all think he has.”

“King Robert.”

“Yes, all hail our mighty king.” She says it with little enthusiasm.

Moons pass and their stores dwindle. Occasionally, the Tyrells will throw a token force at their walls. The force always breaks against it, the walls forty to eighty feet thick and a hundred feet high. The Tyrells have ladders high enough for it, and battering rams thick enough, but they cannot penetrate the walls.

Still, there are casualties.

The men who fall are buried, their flesh feeding the grains that grow just outside the shadow of the wall. The smith, Donal Noye, takes a glancing blow from an axe and his wound festers. Maester Cressen treats it the best he can, but in the end, they have men hold the smith down while Stannis takes a meat cleaver to the arm.

In his delirium, the smith tells Stannis he had been making a sword for him.

“Forty days and forty nights,” the man mutters.

She finds the sword, still without a pommel. She will have it finished when this is over.

“Prince Stannis,” she murmurs. The sword stays in the forge.

Renly cries all the time now. At first it is because he is hungry. She sees Stannis scrape food of his own plate for his brother. And for her.

“You don’t…”

“He is my brother, and you are my betrothed.” She cannot sway him.

“Only dinner for me, then.”

He grows thinner by the day, his fine black hair thinning. She is hungry, tired, cannot sleep, but she does not say anything. She has not bled for four moons.

Oh, she is not with child. Not his, not any others. It is the stress, the hunger, Maester Cressen tells her. It has been known to happen, to queens most of all. When there is not enough food for her, she cannot carry or feed a child.

Renly still cries now. Not because of the hunger, for they are all used to that by now, but because his brother is ill and will not wake. Three weeks ago, he had sobbed into her skirts, and a fortnight past he had collapsed during his rounds and not woken up. The maester is always at his bedside, dribbling honey and sugar water into his mouth. He will not wake.

She had not known how tightly wound her betrothed had been. She had come to his office to mend their clothing while he worked and found him with his head in his hands, tears leaking through his fingers.

“Leave me,” he had gasped out. “I am weak.”

“No,” she had murmured, and gone to embrace him. He had fallen to his knees in front of her, clutching her legs like a lifeline, and cried.

“I see Renly and you starving, day after day, my men starving, swaying at their posts, and I can do nothing. How… how can you be so strong in… this?”

“Because I only have to be strong for you and for Renly,” she answers him, carding her fingers through his hair. “You must be strong for all of us. No man can in the face of such adversity.”

They are quiet after that. He had gone back to his accounts and she to her sewing after that.

Seven and a half moons into the siege, Lord Stannis sleeps.

He is not dead; the men reassure themselves. He has given his all for the castle, for his family, and now we must hold it in his absence. The men cannot respect Renly, for all his tears, and they cannot respect her as much as they did Stannis. He had led them through a long siege, with minimal casualties, fought alongside his men, fallen for his men.

But she can still invoke his name. There is a lull in the attacks now, but their stores are still not enough.

Eight moons gone, and they are eating rats and seagulls. The little grain they manage to grow feeds them a little better, but the men are gaunt and starving. She cannot reassure them. They catch enough birds and their rat farms given enough meat for them to live, but every man stands like they are half into the grave already.

Nine moons.

It is Ser Gawen who tries to surrender. Ser Gawen who is caught and tried and found guilty. He is kept in the cells for Stannis, once he wakes. If he wakes. He looks on the brink of death. He has cried out in his sleep, not words, but he has not shown sign of waking.

She must…

She must hold the castle together. Ser Gawen dies in his cell, and they bury his corpse.

Their salvation comes from the most unlikely source.

Ten moons in, Davos Seaworth comes in the dead of night, bearing onions and salt fish, and the men rejoice. It is a turning point in the monotony. The onions fill their bellies, the salt fish flavor their meals, and for once, there is hope in the men.

More hope, when Stannis awakens. He wakes, he speaks, and the men praise the Seven for this. Stannis is even more grim, however.

He takes the smuggler’s fingers and grants him a knighthood.

She watches him carry out his judgement. No good deed washes out the bad, but the bad deeds do not wash out the good. He takes the meat cleaver, the same one he took Donal Noye’s arm with, and cleaves the smuggler’s fingertips off. The smuggler, Ser Davos now, smiles through the pain.

As soon as Cressen has bound the man’s fingers, Stannis bids him kneel and knights him on the spot. Kneeling in his own blood, through the pain.

Stannis gathers up the man’s fingers and leaves after that. She follows him. He is alive.

She sees him toss the fingertips into the fire.

Outside, it begins to rain.

“Stannis.”

He whirls around so quickly she is afraid he will snap his neck.

“You should not be here,” he barks, pale.

Outside, the wind howls. The fire grows brighter. She is not afraid.

“What is it?” she asks him.

He does not answer her. His eyes are fixed on the fire, his hands clenched into fists.

She pulls the curtains of the room shut when the rain starts coming in. He catches her hand on the last one, pulls the curtain open.

She gasps when the water hits her, soaking her through. Outside, seagulls scream while the storm rages.

“I am the storm,” he says, so quietly she can barely hear him over the wind.

“I am the storm!”

In the wash of the storm, Stannis pulls her face to his and kisses her, hard. She freezes. She does not know what to do. She manages to pull away for a moment.

“Stannis, what…”

“Hush, Alaena,” he says, and kisses her again. She likes it. He chuckles darkly into her mouth when she gasps. Her toes curl.

He leads them over to the bed, and Alaena panics again. But he does not push her down. He just sits and hauls her onto his lap. Her wet clothes cling to her body, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He devours her.

She opens her eyes, at one point, and sees his blue, blue eyes staring back at her, raindrops clinging to his eyelashes. She closes her eyes again.

They are pressed tightly together. So tightly. She can feel his bones, his muscles, and she is sure he can feel her flesh pressed against his. And then she notices, and her eyes fly open in surprise.

“Stannis, I…”

He moves his lips behind her ear, and she shivers.

“I will not dishonor you before we are wed. You have my word on that.”

Gods…

She sleeps in his bed, that night, naked. He is sitting in front of the fire, her clothes drying with his. Stannis had dug the finger bones out of the fire and set them aside. She does not know what he sees.

He does not touch her, after. She is wrapped tightly in his blankets and she sleeps. When she wakes, it is still dark out, and he is still sitting in front of the fire. The storm is still in full force outside. The curtains are shut.

He must notice that she is awake, for he finally speaks.

“When I was asleep, I dreamed.”

She waits for him to continue.

“I dreamed of my mother and father. I dreamed that they had lived, before the storm took them away. The sea god and the wind goddess if the legends of Storms End are to be believed. And then the ice froze Shipbreakers Bay, and a crow came to me. He had three eyes.

“He taught me how to fly.”

“What was his name?” Alaena asks him.

“Bryden, he told me. He told me to come north of the Wall, and he would teach me more. “Great power is borne of blood and sacrifice,” he said to me.”

“Bryden… could he have been the Bloodraven, lost north of the Wall?”

“It could have been, couldn’t it. But I denied him. I have a life here. He bemoaned that I had failed him, just like the first, and I told him to find a third. Like his eyes.”

“You called the storm with Ser Davos’ fingers.”

He turns to face her at last, and there is an odd light in his blue eyes.

“I am the storm, Alaena.”

The storm does not let up for four days. Stannis does not either. She spends each night in his bed. He does not touch her when she is in his bed. But he kisses her. As fierce as the storm that still rages.

On the fourth day, the storm lets up, and Stannis sleeps for a day and a night. When he wakes, Ser Davos has returned with more onions, some salt pork, and some pickled vegetables. The Redwyne fleet is in shambles. So disorganized, like the Tyrell camp, that Ser Davos can go and return with more food once more before they reassemble the blockade.

The flow of food from the Reach pauses while the storm rages, and it takes the next shipment some time as the carts struggle through the muddied soil.

And yet Lord Mace Tyrell still feasts in site of the walls. But it is more amusing than mocking, with most of the tents still collapsed, muddied. She smiles at Stannis, from where he watches. If the Tyrell men see her on the walls, if they tell Aerys, it does not matter.

Aerys is dead. The raven comes a sennight before Lord Stark comes to relieve the siege. Aerys is dead, slew by his own Kingsguard, and Robert is King.

Stannis hauls out his father’s wine cellar and toasts to their victory. He is not shy, not anymore. She knows he will always have a shred of resentment, he will always love his duty, but he now has a power his brothers do not.

Mace Tyrell dips his banners when Eddard Stark comes, and we open the gates to welcome the Northern host inside. They take the food of the Tyrell camp – spoils of war, and all that – and throw a small feast. Despite the food that Ser Davos has brought, the men are unused to thick, filling food. The Northmen drink and sing bawdy songs. They fill the halls with something close to levity.

The men are not. The war is not yet over. And judging by the look on Ned Stark’s face, he knows it too. Mayhap he thinks of his sister, lost somewhere.

Stannis does not like Eddard Stark. He has never met the man before, but the fact that Robert chose Ned over his own brother – the wound still stings. And yet…

And yet Stannis finds more in common with Lord Stark than he ever did with his brothers. And yet…

He begrudges the man’s adherence to honor. What honor was there in betraying your family’s oath to the King to raise banners for your family? Stannis had chosen duty. The duty of the younger brother to the elder rather than his duty to the King.

The men of Storms End are eager to leave the castle. They had held it, they had succeeded, but the memories still haunted the walls. They journey to Kings Landing to report to Robert. King Robert, who sent Lord Stark to relieve the siege instead of doing it himself.

The year is 283 AC. The dragons have been dethroned, and her good-brother sits on the Iron Throne. King Robert honors Eddard Stark for liberating Storms End. Stannis grinds his teeth.

“Doesn’t Robert know it was Stannis who held Storms End?” Renly asks, petulant.

“He simply loves Eddard Stark more than his true brothers.” Renly frowns for a moment.

“Well _I_ love you more than Lord Stark,” he says. It makes Stannis uncomfortable, to have it said so plainly, but he accepts Renly’s hug anyway.

Lyanna is found dead.

Robert mourns.

King Robert weds Cersei Lannister at the Great Sept of Baelor. Queen Cersei seems to glow brighter than the sun, and Lord Tywin seems to almost smile. Stannis grits his teeth at the revelry.

They leave long before Robert gets drunk enough to paw at the serving wenches.

He pulls her into an alcove.

“Stannis!” she hisses, “we’ll be seen!”

He grins at her, a look so unfamiliar on him that she begins to suspect that he is just a bit drunk. Then he takes a knife, pricks his finger, and they vanish.

“What would they think,” she huffs, between kisses, “of the King’s brother debasing his betrothed – yes – during his wedding feast – yes, Stannis.”

“We’ll have to get Storms End cleaned up for the wedding,” he says, lips on her neck, “and we have to find Lord Velaryon, or otherwise his son. Robert will demand that the remaining Targaryens be brought to heel. Pity that your grandfather is with the Royal Fleet around Dragonstone.”

“Gods! I…”

“Good thing that I fear no gods. Durran Godsgrief and his lady love, Elenei. Your name is no coincidence, I think.”

“I think… I think it was for Elaena, the Velaryon queen – Stannis – but Alaena does sound rather like Elenei, if you say it right…”

“Alaena…”

They stay hidden in the alcove while the wedding guests stream past for the bedding. Queen Cersei is laughing, radiant, as is King Robert. They follow, in their wake, clothes rumpled and hand in hand.

At her rooms, he kisses the back of her hand – just barely – and begs his leave. Grim faced and sober once more. She bites her lip and thinks of Stannis.

It might have been because of their close proximity, it might have been because she was the one woman to give him more attention that she did Robert, it might have been because she was there when he did that magic. She does not know.

A few days later, Robert demands that Stannis build him a royal fleet and capture Dragonstone. While he slaves away in the council chambers, digging for gold to fund the project, she brings Donal Noye’s longsword to a smith and draws up a design for the pommel. Idly, the smith remarks that the blade is as close to Valyrian steel as they can get nowadays.

She serves Cersei. The Queen still scorns her, but her position is secure. Cersei is angry that her father did not tell her that she was a Velaryon.

“I bet you knew all along, didn’t you?”

She cannot deny it. Meanwhile, Robert laughs that his good-father had fooled King Aerys on so many accounts, from the sack to the identity of a girl. She smiles thinly.

“And gods, you’re a pretty one, aren’t you? Good thing Aerys thought you were a bastard, or he would have had you pushing out dragonspawn the moment you flowered. Stannis better be grateful for his little prize.” And:

“If you manage to get my brother to loosen up enough to fuck you, it’ll be a miracle indeed.” And:

“Oho, I bet you’ll give my brother a few Baratheon-looking babes, with hair as dark as yours. Reminds me a little of my Lyanna, though none can match her beauty or her grace. I should have kept you for myself, but Jon had to make me marry Tywin’s daughter. Granted, she’s a pretty one, but her hair is as light as Lyanna’s is dark.”

Cersei seethes from Roberts side, and Stannis looks about ready to kingslay for her honor. But they are just words. Words of a king.

Robert even tries to grope her, once, and Stannis tackles his brother to the ground. The Kingsguard must pull the brothers apart. Stannis sports a black eye and a limp for the next few days. She notices that she is not without an escort for the rest of her time. All of them men who had held Storms End with them, men whose loyalty is to Stannis first and foremost. It makes her feel safer.

Robert is not the first king who has thought to take her, use her.

After Stannis has recovered from that spat, he takes his anger out on the men manning the Royal Fleet. The ships are still being built, but the men need to be trained. He goes at them with a ferocity every day, until he is tired enough that he cannot lift his sword any longer. He is not Robert Baratheon, Demon of the Trident, a man who can fight three battles in one day and still have energy to fuck afterwards.

He is a man, still gaunt from starving. And yet he trains. And yet.

Robert comes down to the training yard occasionally. The men are cheered at the sight of their king, but their king spends most of his time with whores.

She embroiders a handkerchief for Stannis. It is blue like the Velaryon sigil, blue like his eyes. Around the edge, little stags prance. She embroiders a small seahorse in one corner.

He smiles when she gives it to him, knotting it with the plain white one she’d given him many moons ago. He is more handsome when he smiles, she thinks, but it is the rarity of the smiles that makes them all the more precious. She would not care if his royal brother smiled at her, after all.

Stannis has the Royal Fleet assembled within nine moons. At the docks, she gives him the sword, pommel decorated with rampant stags and a blue sapphire.

“For your eyes,” she tells him.

“Stormbringer,” he tells her with a smile. Then he kisses her hand, and he is off to Dragonstone.

The ranks of the Royal fleet are swelled with Redwyne ships. Stannis does not object to them as much as he does to Mace Tyrell’s continued freedom. They set sail from the Blackwater, led by the _Fury_ , black sails with the golden crowned Baratheon stag for the second Baratheon son.

Inverting the colors of a house was oft used by bastards. Stannis is not a bastard, but rather wishes to be separate from his brother.

Alaena smiles when it begins to rain. In her rooms, she gives a few drops of her blood to the brazier while the thunder booms. She doesn’t know if it helps. She hopes it does.

The Royal Fleet returns after the storm, victorious.

“The storm smashed the Targaryen fleet, Your Grace,” Stannis says to Robert. “Dowager Queen Rhaella was found dead in the birthing bed, and the ship that carried the Prince Viserys, the newborn Princess Daenerys, and Ser Willem Darry was sunk by the storm.”

 _I am the storm_ ; Stannis’ voice says in her mind. Her favors are still tied around his arm, over his dark armor.

It was a storm like none other, the men say. The heavens opened up and wept, washed the Targaryen stain away. The skies thundered like the new king, flashed as bright as Prince Stannis’ sword.

Four fingers had given Stannis enough to summon a storm long and harsh enough to scatter a fleet and an army. What did he have to do to summon waves so tall, so ferocious, as to crush war galleys?

The blood of the storm kings sits on the Iron Throne, the courtiers say. The descendants of Durran sit the throne. They wield storms instead of dragons, they say. Storms that cannot be stopped. Still others call Stannis or Robert sorcerers, sacrificing maidens to call up storms. But it cannot be Robert, can it? Not when he was off wenching the night the storm came. It must have been the Prince Stannis, they say, wroth because of the siege, of having him and his brother and his betrothed starved at the command of the Targaryens. So wroth that his fury called up storms to fight alongside his fleet.

She knows the truth.

“Who did you have to kill?” she asks him, “who gave their life to summon the storm?”

“The first man who drowned when the first wave hit gave strength to the next wave, and the next. Every man who drowned gave life to the storm. Every drop of blood shed on that island, every drop of blood on those ships, fed the storm. Queen Rhaella’s lifeblood made the storm go wild.” His eyes are dark.

“Where did the first wave come from?”

“It started to rain, and then something, someone, gave me the power to become the storm.” His eyes glitter like dark lapis in the darkness of the room. Onyx.

“I gave some blood to the fire,” she whispers.

He smiles, grimly.

“Then why do you eyes condemn me, Alaena? What have I done to upset you so?”

“My grandfather – was he with the fleet?” And he understands.

“Your father still lives,” he says, touching her hair. She withdraws. He looks hurt.

“Leave me, Stannis. I have killed my own grandfather. Kinslayer.” She spits the last word, not meeting his eyes.

“Alaena…”

“I said leave me, Your Highness. I wish to be alone.”

He leaves.

Renly comes to her, tries to comfort her. His smiles lift the shadow on her heart for a moment, but it returns when he leaves.

Her father comes to her. It is the first time he has. He doesn’t know her. He will give her to Stannis in a moon’s turn anyway. King Robert commands it.

“Grandfather is dead because of me,” she tells her father.

“I never liked him anyway,” Monford Velaryon says, not noticing her distress.

“I never had a father, so what can I say?” If her words hurt him, he does not say. He leaves.

The next time she sees Stannis, she is on her way to the Queen’s chambers to serve Cersei. She had demanded it. Stannis is walking with Ser Davos, Stormbringer strapped to his belt. He is garbed in all black, with gold etching everywhere. There is a gold circlet in his dark hair.

She walks away.

They do not speak until they say their wedding vows in the sept of Storms End. He does not kiss her until after they say their vows. And yet she finds a way to smile at the crowd, cloaked in Baratheon black and gold.

They do not speak during the wedding feast, with the King growing drunker and drunker while Stannis’ frown becomes more and more pronounced. She dances once with him, once with her father, and once with Lord Tywin before she sits and is still.

King Robert disappears before the bedding. She notices it. He does not. Not until the guests are calling for the bedding, and Stannis begins looking around frantically for his brother, who is nowhere to be found.

He is frozen when the men grab at her, when the women begin converging on him. He only reacts, once, when the women begin stripping him. And then he is still. They only manage to remove his jacket. The men, on the other hand, have their hands all over her body. She kicks a man who dares put his hand between her thighs, and he curses while the onlookers laugh. They deposit her, naked, in the bedchamber next to Stannis, who is still frozen.

Staring at the King rutting a serving girl in their martial bed.

She covers herself as best she can with her hands, unconsciously leans towards Stannis, who looks down in surprise. She has never seen him so angry all at once. He shrugs off his tunic, draping it over her to cover her nakedness.

“There are other rooms,” she says to him quietly. The King has noticed them, and he laughs along with the wedding guests when he pulls his breeches on, the serving girl is red in the face, struggling to cover her over-ample breasts.

“I want her fed moon tea and sent away,” she says, and one of Stannis’ men nods beside her.

Stannis looks at her, then. Hesitates. Then slides his arm under her legs to pick her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder as he walks away, up to his bedroom. His room, even though he is to be made Lord of Storms End.

He sets her down on the bed and then backs away, lights the fire. She sits there, blinking, as he sighs.

“We don’t have to…” he begins.

“It is our duty,” she says, her voice hollow. I don’t want to, remains unsaid.

“Alaena.” He is on his knees in front of her. Bare-chested. “Tell me what I can do. Tell me what to do to make this better.”

“I don’t know,” she says, sadly. “I’ll spend time on my knees in a sept to atone, then I’ll try to forget. I didn’t even know him, but he was my grandfather. I’d like very much to turn into a drunkard like Robert now. It might be easier to forget that way.”

“Are you angry with me?” The question from Stannis catches her off guard.

“N-no. Not you.” She pauses, searches for something she can’t find in his eyes. “You can help me forget,” she says to him. Whispers. If he does not understand what she means, her blush makes it more obvious.

“Are you sure, Alaena? We don’t…”

“We do,” she says, stronger this time. “We must.”

She pulls his tunic off before she can scare herself out of it and wraps herself in the blankets. Stannis begins to pull his breeches off, and she closes her eyes. He blows out the candles. The only light is from the hearth.

The featherbed dips when he climbs onto it. He gently unwinds the blankets from her, climbs under the covers. She cannot see him clearly. Only his eyes, reflecting the flames. Dark.

He hovers over her. She had wanted… she still does. She does not resist when he kisses her, kisses him back, even.

When they are done, he rolls off her, and she turns onto her side to hide her tears. He was as gentle as he could have been, and it did not hurt as much as she had thought. It felt good, even, but it does not help her forget. She lets him hug her. Sleeps fitfully.

He is getting dressed when she wakes. Her legs are crusted with his seed and dried blood. And she is sore. It is not a bad soreness, she thinks. He freezes, watches her when she stretches. He is a young man, yet.

“Must you go so early?” she murmurs, and he sets his tunic back down. She rolls out of bed and stumbles to the washbasin, splashing water on her face. She wrings out a towel and wipes off her thighs. He sees the blood.

“It didn’t hurt,” she says, and he relaxes. It is partly a lie. Not the whole truth.

She walks over to him. In the morning light, she can see him, clearer. He can see her too, and she sees him swallow. Alaena places her palms flat on his bare chest.

“Come back to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that Stannis gets boners from doing three-eyed-crow magic. Don't ask


	3. flame

Later, she will think that this is where it all started. Later, surrounded by black-haired babes. But first –

First, they love. First, they choose to be selfish, choose themselves, until the King calls Stannis back to Kings Landing to be Master of Ships. Until the Queen gives the King golden-haired babes. Until Renly is betrothed to Desmera Redwyne.

Redwyne ships join Lannister ships and Velaryon ships and Baratheon galleys to crush the Ironborn. Stannis leaves her with a babe on her hip and a babe in her belly. He comes back to her more scarred than he was when he left. He comes back to a second Baratheon babe.

Their first child, Shireen, is black of hair. The girl has inherited Stannis’ square jaw, but her hair is dark and her eyes a Valyrian violet. Alaena loves her. Their second child is named Faeran, with eyes a deep indigo. She will not give her children the names of the dead. They are new Baratheons with new names.

Her third child is planted in her womb when she is visiting Dragonstone. The flames lead her to the tunnels, her children in tow. The flames lead her to the caves. The flames lead her to the dragon eggs.

She cannot pick any of them up. She does not know what magic is here, but she cannot. Her children can. It is the babe in her belly that chooses the egg she picks up. The flames lead her.

There is no Mother of Dragons, not in this world, but she is the mother of dragonriders. For the sake of the children, she remains at Dragonstone while Stannis stays in Kings Landing to serve the king. She misses him, it is true, but her children are her pride and joy. She brings Alaric into the world with a roaring fire in the hearth and a storm outside the window.

She doesn’t know how Stannis manages to find out so soon. She barely has a moment to herself before he barrels into the room, dripping rainwater.

The flames lead Melisandre to her.

The Red Priestess arrives while Stannis is in Kings Landing. She arrives with the greyscale.

Shireen is the only one of her children who gets the disease. Stannis cannot come, not when she has Dragonstone sealed off. It is just her, the children, Maester Cressen, and Melisandre. Melisandre calls Stannis the Prince That Was Promised, preaching about salt and smoke and dragons from stone. Does the woman not know that her sons are princes too? That her children will have dragons?

The Red Woman does not. Alaena cannot bring herself to care about the priestess, not when her daughter is on death’s door. Not when Shireen screams with each treatment Maester Cressen tries on the scales on her cheek. The maester keeps the disease from spreading to her eye, but he cannot keep it from spreading to her neck. It grows by the day.

Melisandre sees Shireen, and as if awakened by some demonic force, begins calling Shireen the dragon. The stone. The scales. Stannis’ daughter.

Melisandre swears that the child will be cured by the Red God’s power. Only through her. When Alaena forbids it, the woman still tries to cut through the guards to Shireen’s room before she is stopped. Alaena throws the woman in the dungeons, with blankets but no flames for warmth.

She has forbidden contact from the outside world. For a mad second, Alaena thinks that burning Melisandre will cure the greyscale. But the Red God is not her god. She has faith in storms. And human, human flames.

Her resolve finally breaks. She brings Melisandre out of the dungeons, up to Shireen’s room, gives her whatever she needs to work her magic. When she pushes open the door, however, Shireen is not in it.

“Shireen!”

The window is open, and Alaena rushes over to it, looks out and down. No body. She whirls around at Melisandre’s voice.

“Shireen…”

Her daughter is curled up around the dragon egg, in the roaring fire in the hearth.

Her daughter is unburnt.

The flames burn the greyscale away, leaving only scars. Scales. A single drop of blood lands on the egg, and there is a deafening  _ CRACK _ that makes Melisandre flinch away from the fire.

_ Fire and blood _ .

There is an ear-splitting screech, and Shireen opens her eyes. The dragon and the girl seem to draw the flames into themselves, and Shireen rises from the ashes of the hearth. Her clothes are gone, burnt, and she is bald. The dragon leaves bloody scratches across her shoulders. Alaena doesn’t know what to do but find her daughter something to wear.

The dragon snarls at Melisandre, who flinches again.

“Rhaenar,” Shireen says, “for Father’s grandmother.”

And it is so. Shireen, bald and scarred, takes to the streets. The dragon’s presence burns away the taint of the disease, the people say, after. The dragon burned the taint of the Red God away too. Melisandre’s flames were false. Princess Shireen’s true dragonfire burned the priestess.

Alaric is the next to hatch his dragon. Alaena places the egg in the brazier next to his bed, and her child places his hands on the egg. He too does not burn. Alaric is only one nameday old, but his bond with the dragon seems stronger than ever. Her youngest cannot talk yet, but it is only a matter of time.

Faeran, dear, dear Faeran, does not seem to have the dragon’s blood her other children do. He burns as easily as she does, and he is constantly at odds with his dragon, Firestorm, but when he and his dragon are of one mind…

Firestorm incapacitated Melisandre before Rhaenar finished the job.

Stannis rushes to Dragonstone the moment Maester Cressen declares that the island is free of the disease. He arrives sooner than expected, but there was a strong wind carrying him there, anyway. He runs his hand through the stubble on Shireen’s head and kisses her scarred cheek. He bows solemnly to Faeran, murmuring something in their son’s ear that makes him beam. He takes Alaric from her arms and bounces him. Alaena’s heart feels fit to burst with happiness.

None of them are whole. Not entirely. But they are together.

She tells Stannis about Melisandre, about Azor Ahai, Lightbringer, and dragons. He snorts.

“I am not some legendary hero come again. And our children are the ones who have awoken the dragons. Not only that, I have no need of Lightbringer. Why would I when I have Stormbringer?”

If Alaena were honest with herself, she was afraid that Melisandre’s promises of flames and power would sway her husband. If she were honest with herself. But she is not. She has not been since she killed her grandfather. She stood by and let her children have their first taste of blood, burning the Red Woman.

Do her children feel guilt? She certainly has, for her part in her grandfather’s death. But Melisandre is not related to them. It should be alright.

But the woman had screamed when she was first burnt by Firestorm, so loudly that the onlookers cursed and crossed themselves with the seven-pointed-star. She had seen the indecision in her son’s eyes, then. The woman had screamed until Rhaenar burnt her head clean off. The ruby at her throat had fallen and cracked, the unnatural light going out of it. Her children had gone off, and she had not gone to comfort them.

Does Alaena feel guilt? Is it too late to go to them?

She finds them on the shores of Dragonstone. Shireen is leaning on Rhaenar, tossing a smooth pebble in her hands, and Faeran is fiddling with the hem of his robes. He looks up on her arrival.

“Mother.”

She greets them. There had been words forming in her mind before this moment, but they vanish as soon as she sees them. With a sigh, she sits on the pebbled beach. Firestorm bounds over, sniffs at her hand, then curls up behind Faeran.

“I want to tell you a story,” she says at last. “It is about kings and storms and maidens and flames. Would you care to hear it?”

The do.

She tells them her story. Not from the beginning, mind, but as close to the end as she can. It begins with battles upon high seas, storms coming to crush fleets and drown men. She makes sure they take note of the drowning men. She tells them about maidens giving their blood to flames, women on the brink of death giving their lifeblood to fire. Sparks snuffed out by the raging storm, mothers and fathers and grandfathers killed by the maiden’s folly.

“I never looked my grandfather in the eyes, especially not when he died, but his death is as much my fault as was the deaths of every man on that fleet.”

Shireen nods, as if the pieces of the story had finally come together. Faeran looks at her with some measure of shock.

“It was the storm that killed him,” Faeran says, still confused.

“My blood started the storm, sweetling.” 

“I sometimes see her burning when I sleep, Mother,” Shireen supplies, helpfully. “It haunts me, yes, but I always know that her death was justified, and that only the flames could have burned her taint away.”

Alaena closes her eyes, breathes deep.

“Let me tell you another story,” she says to her children, “about a girl and her three dragons.”

And she does. Alaena does not know if the Targaryen madness would have taken the princess, if she had lived, but she tells the story as if it would.

A girl, of the blood of Old Valyria, running away from those who would see her harmed. She receives three dragon eggs, already turned to stone, when she marries a Dothraki horselord. When her husband dies, when her child dies, when the woman who killed her husband burns in the flames, her eggs hatch, bringing forth three dragons. She went East, after that, away from the people she was running from, the people who had killed her family, and would kill her too if they thought her a threat.

She runs to the East, where she sees men and women enslaved, and answers with fire and blood. She frees the slaves, takes over cities. For every slave the masters kill in defiance of her, she burns someone. She is fire and blood, and soon, she knows naught else. Traitors from her homeland come to her, advising her. She goes West.

Along the way, she loses two dragons, her dearest friend, and many others she had once loved to the same family who killed hers. She resolves to sack their city, tear it down brick by brick, and dole out vengeance for the fallen. And yet, when she looks on the city where her enemies are holed up, there is only anger. Only fire and blood.

The city, women and children and the innocent, are burned. There is no blood to stain her hands. There is only ash.

Death.

Shireen understands.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether or not they want to use their dragons. Jon Arryn dies, Eddard Stark is executed, and there is war. Cersei’s children are abominations, Stannis tells her, born of incest. Alaena acts appropriately shocked. She knew, or at least suspected, that the twins had done this thing. For her debt to Tywin Lannister, she kept their secret. Now, she cannot deny.

Lord Tywin writes to her, urging her to convince her husband to march in defence of the new King Joffrey. She writes back, just as brief, informing him that her debt to him was paid through the secrets she kept. If she spoke out, revealed him to be the murderer he was, she would be believed. And yet he returns with a counter-offer, suggesting to marry Shireen to her “cousin” so that her children might sit on the throne anyway. But why would she? Her children come before thrones, and if she were to encourage her husband to take the throne, as is his right, she would be Queen. 

Somehow, the world learns of her children’s dragons, now the size of destriers. Alaric can ride his, but her boy is only three. For what it is worth, the men of the crownlands, many still Targaryen loyalists, flock to her husband’s banner. Her father comes with her six-nameday-old brother, Monterys, and the Velaryon fleet. Ser Davos comes with a Lyseni pirate and his war galleys. And Renly, dear Renly. 

He’d fallen for the Tyrell boy, or maybe the Tyrell boy fell for him. And the boy was not his father, not fat, nor prone make stupid decisions. The fact that he had yet to be born during the siege made him one of the few acceptable Tyrells. Renly brings Loras Tyrell and his contingent of Stormlander levies and Reachmen. In response, Tywin Lannister offers to betroth Margaery Tyrell to Joffrey. 

And thus, the crux. If the Tyrells did not back the Lannisters, the Westermen were sure to lose the war on numbers alone. It did not matter how skilled Lord Tywin was at the matters of war. With every great house of the Seven Kingdoms against the Lannisters, what hope did they have to prevail? Of course, the Old Lion was not without his pride. He would fight to the bitter, bitter end. 

It seems that Mace Tyrell will sit out of the war. His daughter as Queen, but losing his favourite son, or keeping his favoured son? The Florents made the decision for him. In exchange for being made Lords Paramount of the Reach and regaining Highgarden, the Florents sold themselves to the Lannisters. A Florent daughter, one of the prettier ones, was betrothed to Joffrey, and many houses with the blood of the Gardener Kings followed the Florents. 

“I would have preferred the Florents to Mace Tyrell,” Stannis snarls to her, but he cannot refuse their aid. The Redwynes, betrothed to Renly, bring their fleet. And the army of the Reach, once outside Storm’s End to besiege it, now are there to defend it. 

In a last-bid attempt to make his daughter Queen as well, Mace Tyrell reportedly approached Renly, suggesting that he, clearly better suited to be King, should make his own bid for the throne. And take Margaery as Queen. 

Renly tells her, still brimming with anger, and she makes the decision to not inform Stannis - King Stannis, all things considered - yet.Telling him so might send him into some sort of rage, and he’d probably alienate the Reachmen via his anger towards Mace Tyrell. That considered, he might also demand Lord Mace’s head. That would not do, at least for now. Afterwards… 

Afterwards would happen once the war was over. 

Still, she and Stannis have a daughter and two sons. The Lady Margaery might be betrothed to one of them, though she is older. Or Shireen might be sent as a wife to Lord Willas. But these are uncertainties, she tells Renly. 

With the men so oft in the war council, the day-to-day responsibilities of running the castle fall to her. And - the seven kingdoms are her responsibility, too, are they not? She is Queen, her Stannis King. Her sons are princes and her daughter a princess. 

As Robb Stark rides to meet Tywin Lannister in the field, and Ser Jaime is captured, she urges her husband to declare himself King. Her husband is the one to declare the twins’ incest, that the children are Waters instead of Baratheons. And, the court sails for a much needed respite to Oldtown, where Lord Hightower is only too glad to host them. 

“There was a precedence,” she tells Stannis, one evening, “when King Aenys was anointed in the Starry Sept.”

The act endears him further to the Targaryen loyalists. It wasn’t he who killed the remaining Targaryens, after all. It was the storm. 

The mummery irks him, she knows, but it is necessary. 

Stannis is crowned in the Starry Sept with a new crown of gold and steel by the septon. She cannot tell where the antlers end and the waves begin. He crowns her with another crown, rose gold, with the points standing like flames against the charcoal of her hair. There is revelry, there is celebration, and even Robb Stark sends his mother to attend them. 

“Stannis! Stannis! Stannis King!” the men cry, as they walk from the sept, Renly and the children trailing after them. The dragons are kept away, in case Firestorm or the dragon are agitated enough to think about breathing flames. A few Reachmen quietly shout for Renly, and the few northerners cry out for justice. Alaena smiles and waves.

Stannis grits his teeth, but why else is she there but to support him, to soothe his ruffled feathers? He asks her to dance only once, and they spend the rest of the evening in quiet accord, only speaking when lords and ladies come to the high table to pay their respects. It is like their wedding all over again, albeit more grand. Renly laughs with his lover, Loras, and spins his betrothed, sixteen-nameday-old Desmera, around and around on the floor.

If she thought everything was going to plan, Alaena was very much mistaken. 

Her former foster-father is nothing if not pragmatic. He is ruthless, he is cunning. He turns his attention to the Northmen while the court makes slow progress from Oldtown. 

The Freys make a mockery of a wedding. Lady Catelyn tears her gown in grief at the news. The few Northmen in attendance clamor for revenge. Lady Catelyn just wants her remaining children safe. When Alaena goes to offer the other woman some measure of comfort, forgoing her crown and her finery, Lady Catelyn still lashes out.

“Easy for you to say, Your Grace,” Catelyn spits, “for your children will always have dragons to protect them. I was not there - could not be there - for my son. I should have died there with him.”

“And what of your remaining children, my lady? Will you let them live without a mother and a father? Who will avenge them? What of your eldest daughter, still trapped in that pit of vipers? What of your younger daughter, still lost in the Crownlands?” The woman jerks back at that.

“Arya isn’t in the capital?”

“She is not. I hear regular reports that the bastard Joffrey beats your eldest every time your late son won a war, but nobody speaks of the younger one. Not a single word, so I suspect that she has escaped.”

In the morn, Stannis and Lord Tarly and Redwyne are already preparing to march and set sail. The plan is clear – the fleet will sail up the Blackwater to distract, while the might of the Reach and Stormlands closes in from the South and the Riverlands and North come from the North to rout Tywin and any moves he might make.

The Florents and their allies make to defend the capital, as expected, but the greater might of loyal houses turns them away.

The Blackwater burns. 

She is still waiting in Storm’s End when word arrives, when panicked sailors retreat. It was meant as a distraction, and it  _ worked _ , but nobody ever thought it would come at so high a price. Many men die from the fire. 

Her father is one of them. 

All that is left to her now is little Monterys, and though she expected the outcome, so long ago, it still hurts to think that her half-brother is all that is left of Velaryon. Soon, no doubt, her bastard uncle would make a move for Driftmark, and it will be up to her to stop him. 

Of course, they take the capital, with quite a few losses. But not Stannis, and not Renly either, for her husband is a commander first and foremost, and her good-brother, young enough to be her son, would have the glory and none of the consequences. They storm the walls after the first wave of young, foolish men have secured it. 

Second and third sons leading the charge had fallen, though Loras was not among them. She finds out rather soon that her worries about Aurane Waters were unfounded, since he had died with the ships, died with her father. 

The capital is taken, and Queen Alaena rides into the city, hailed. Really, it was the Tyrell food that kept the smallfolk so happy, but if she could profit from the Tyrell’s efforts, it would be alright. Lady Catelyn is reunited with her daughter, and there is some measure of comfort, for a while.

The bastard King Joffrey dies some time during the sack, but the second son, Tommen, still clutches to his mother’s skirts when they are found, pushing away his mother’s attempt to feed him poison. The girl is safe in Dorne, at least. She later hears how her husband had sat on the throne, tried Cersei for her crimes, and ordered her death. Young Tommen was spared, however, being held for the time being. As is Lord Tyrion, who orchestrated the wildfire scheme. The lords had clamored for his death, as they had lost many on the Blackwater, but Stannis had asked them what justice there was in sentencing a man who had stood by his family rather than his rightful king, which Stannis himself had done just that, so many years ago?

Once the capital is taken, and the children and the wives and the mistresses are settled in the keep, the menfolk ride out again to crush Tywin Lannister between them. But the Northern host is scattered, without strong leadership, and Tywin has a place to retreat to.

It no longer matters what schemes Lord Tywin can cook up. He can surrender and live out his days at the Rock, with Tyrion acting as regent for Tommen, or he can resist, be put to the sword, and mayhap his heir with him.

He is captured.

Faeran (prince) is old enough to know what it means. He stands, watching the old lord lose his head. Ser Jaime, with the crippled hand, is sent to the Wall. For treason, yes, but his crime was less severe than Cersei’s or Lord Lannister. Her son is nine, and already her husband teaches him how to mete out justice. 

The Dornish contingent had wanted Lord Tywin to be burned, fitting that the man who had killed dragon princes and princesses would be put to death by a dragon, but Stannis had stood firm against that. The man would have a quick trial and lose his life.

“I do not command my children’s dragons,” her husband had snarled, his hand clutching her elbow tight enough to hurt. “Would you have me make my daughter, hardly a woman, put a man to death, or my nine-nameday-old son do it instead?” Lord Tywin is given a death benefitting a lord, yes, but when the time comes for Ser Gregor and Lorch to be tried, Shireen stands forward and vows that she will see them dead by dragonfire.

“Lord Tywin might have given the command, Lord Oberyn, but it was the monsters that did the deed.”

On a platform above the steps of the Great Sept, men burn. Shireen is white in the face, and Alaena rushes to comfort her. 

“This was different, Mother. With the Red Priestess, I was only finishing what Faeran started, but here, I was the one that made them suffer.”

It is her husband that offers the most comfort.

“Justice is never easy to deliver. Every man should get his due, and it is our duty to make it so.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “you did well, Shireen.”

They clear the dragonpit for the dragons. They are oft chained, yes, but the dragons still grow for how often her children take them out, flying across the bay. 

She smiles, hearing their laughter echo across the water.


End file.
